Safety Policy

Children’s Safety in Friends’ Meeting

Approved by AMM on ___(date?)

The Albuquerque Children and Youth Program Committee, after a year or more of seasoning has adopted these guidelines for practice on the topic of safety for children and adults who work with children in Friends’ Meetings.  We have drawn on material developed by New England and Philadelphia Yearly Meetings. 

Background

As a worship community that involves families and children, we are committed to provide the highest level of safety for our children from physical and emotional abuse of all kinds.  We also recognize that adults working with children need protection of the trust they are taking on with the meeting’s youth.  The intent of this safety policy is to establish working practices that build community, trust and apply equally to all ages.

1.      Some Friends may have approached the problem of children’s safety in a witch-hunt style—looking for “bad guys.”  Most other Friends assume that “everything will be fine” in their children’s program, and therefore believe that no action is needed, which is incorrect.  The complacency of the majority can give license to the hasty and divisive actions of the minority, and the result is that children’s safety is not put first, and neither are the dissenting adults healed or moved toward unity.

2.      An abusive person will probably attend every meeting sooner or later.  This is not just a remote possibility.  People who intend to sexually molest children may even seek out youth programs just for that purpose and this has happened in some meetings and many other religious bodies. People who molest children usually form what appear to be warm, loving relationships with them.  Stating this is not meant to raise fears, but it shows that early action is necessary even when there are no present problems.

3.      All of us are capable of hurting another person, and even the most violent criminals are capable of love.  Evil does not live in a few “bad” people.  All of us become stronger and more loving when in a supportive environment and when we are provided with correct information.  We become weaker, hurtful, and even criminal when exposed to attacks, lies, and other abuses.  Therefore, getting rid of the “bad” people is not a solution to the problem.

4.      Fear, or “the reality of modern society” is no excuse to compromise our divine inspiration to love across age differences and all other differences.  Children still need to be loved and touched and held, and the way we deal with safety issues cannot change their basic needs.  Therefore, placing limits on the depth or quality of relationships is not a solution to the problem either.

How to Prevent Abuse 

The guidelines for practice provide three layers of protection.  1)  The internal qualities and intentions of the adults must be in alignment with real needs of the children; 2)  The environment and procedures must be formulated such that there is no time and place for abusive actions; and 3)  Children must learn how to protect themselves.

1.      Adults need to check that their calling to work with children is genuine, and they should work in supportive teams that worship together and share information to help each other develop deeper awareness.  In the worst cases, some adults who work with children do so because it feeds their ego and gives them more power—youth are easier to control than adults.  Or they may want sexual contact, or may have other reasons that involve exploiting the power-imbalance between children and adults and are therefore hurtful.  But even for those of us who are working with youth for good reasons, many have been hurt in our lives, and human nature makes us sometimes pass on those hurts to people around us.  Especially those among us who have survived child abuse may have psychological blocks to being good models for children.  Therefore, we all need to continuously learn, question ourselves, and develop better skills and deeper understandings of children’s needs.

2.      The second layer of protection is the environment and policies.  Practices should be in place so that it is impossible for abusive actions to occur in private.  The basic rules are:

a)  Two adults are required to be present in all locales where children are under the meeting’s care, so that one adult is not left alone with children.

b)  Touching and sharing information is optional. Some children will not want to be touched or will not want to share things about their lives. And they should never be pressured to do so.

c)  Children’s activities are coordinated through their parents and with their parents’ consent—including the use of permission forms for any travel or overnight activities.

d)  Children cannot be asked to keep a secret.  All relationships and activities are open to the community.

Even adults who believe they are perfectly safe should follow these rules carefully—not just to protect themselves against wrongful accusations, but more importantly, to establish a culture of safe practices that will help a child in his/her whole life outside of meeting.  In order for abuse to occur, the offender would have to violate all of these rules.  If these rules are routinely violated by Friends in the meeting, the child would have no way of distinguishing a dangerous person from a safe person.  But, if everyone in the youth program follows these rules, then the child will know that something is wrong when a different caretaker doesn’t observe the rules.

3.      The third layer of protection is to teach children to protect themselves.  Following the practices ourselves and explaining the practices are good ways to teach self-protection.  It is also important to remind children who they can go to for help—a parent, a teacher, etc.—and that they should go to a trusted adult when they have any concerns about anything.  Most importantly, caretakers should model the kinds of strengths and positive relationships that they want the children to develop.

The only time we should explicitly talk with children about specific dangers is for dangers they are likely to be exposed to, and then we can simply offer them a good response for each danger.  For children from caring families, these dangers might include car accidents, getting lost, getting offered a ride by a stranger, being asked to keep a secret, and other relatively likely events.  Children develop fears about any dangers they know about, so the range of dangers to prepare them for should be kept to a minimum.  More extreme dangers such as sexualization/sexual touch, drug exposure, and unlocked weapons may be inappropriate topics for most children in Quaker meetings, but they may be excellent lessons for children from abusive environments where such dangers actually exist.

What to Do in Response to Abuse

When child abuse occurs—anything from questionable behavior to crimes—the response should be in proportion to the offense, and the actions taken should work toward establishing safety first, then restoration, reconciliation, and forgiveness.

New Mexico, as many states,  requires the reporting of suspected child abuse to the state Children, Youth and Families Department.  If the abuse is a crime, it should be reported to the police unless there is some pressing reason that civil disobedience is called for. Then the offender will be removed by the criminal “justice” system.  For less major problems, re-establishing safety is usually a matter of tightening up on the rules offered above.

In the case of sexual abuse, the attitudes of our entire mainstream society about sexuality make it difficult for a meeting to respond rationally.  Among the reasons abuse survivors may have emotional problems throughout their lifetimes may be that the harm of the original abuse was intensified by the irrational or hateful responses of those around them, or the lack of any way to deal with the pain (because sexuality is an ever-present yet taboo subject). 

The best things we can do for survivors of any kind of personal violation are to provide the opportunity for more loving relationships, to provide a safe opportunity for uncensored self-expression, and to not dwell on the violation or label the person a victim.

We can encourage both survivors and offenders to seek healing through therapy.  The offender can help heal wounds by paying back for the offense in some way.  Worship and dialog between the offender and others can lead to better understanding and healing that can remove the causes for any future abuse.  If the person in question will not follow the rules or will not enter into a healing dialog, he or she will not continue to be part of the community.